Turmoil, kids on the brink and real redemption play out in the course of a year

Nov. 17, 2012

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About this story

Eight hearings were held Nov. 30, 2011, in Tippecanoe Superior Court 3, which is the county’s juvenile court. The day in court was featured in a Dec. 11, 2011, story in the Journal & Courier. Today’s story includes updates about where five of those cases stand, based on juvenile court hearings held between Aug. 14 and Oct. 24. The hearings also marked a time of transition for the court, as Judge Loretta Rush was transitioning out of her role as juvenile judge. She was sworn in as an Indiana Supreme Court justice on Nov. 7. The only condition was an agreement to not identify children involved in family cases. The Journal & Courier does not typically name juvenile offenders unless they are charged as adults.

The next juvenile judge

Late last week, a spokeswoman for Gov. Mitch Daniels said the governor was still considering who will replace Loretta Rush as the next judge in Superior Court 3. Rush was sworn in as an Indiana Supreme Court justice on Nov. 7. Tippecanoe County Senior Judge Thomas Milligan is filling in now. Rush had four years left in her term. Here are the six candidates who have applied: • Tom Brooks Jr., a Lafayette-based attorney. He was counsel for Tippecanoe County’s Court Appointed Special Advocates program for 10 years. • Cindy Garwood, Lafayette general practice attorney. She previously was the part-time magistrate of Tippecanoe County’s IV-D court, which handles child support and paternity matters. • Faith Graham, who has been Tippecanoe County’s only juvenile magistrate since January 2006, when the full-time position was created to alleviate the court’s caseload. • Chuck Hagen, a Tippecanoe County deputy prosecutor. He’s been assigned to juvenile court matters since 2000. • Rebecca Trent, a Brookston-based general practice attorney. She previously ran for elected trial court judge seats and, most recently, applied for an Indiana appellate court vacancy. • Laura Zeman, a Clinton County deputy prosecutor assigned to crimes against children. She previously handled child- and sex-crime cases in Tippecanoe County, served one term as Tippecanoe Superior Court 5 judge and was Tippecanoe County’s first magistrate. — Staff reports

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A full day spent in Tippecanoe Superior Court 3, the county’s juvenile court, is enough to ask: Where do you start to tell about the tragic, the sad, the horrific and the dumbfounding stories that unfold, one after another, in that courtroom?

Tracing those cases nearly a year later is enough to ask: Does it ever end?

“These cases are long,” said Judge Loretta Rush, Tippecanoe County’s juvenile judge until Nov. 7, when she was sworn in as an Indiana Supreme Court justice. “You do everything you can to keep them moving. To find answers for these families. To protect those kids. Always to protect those kids.”

Starting with one day’s caseload — in this instance, the ones heard Nov. 30, 2011 — it’s easy to see how bad decisions grow strings that don’t just get longer, but tend to get knotted, tangled and more complicated for everyone involved.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of these cases,” Rush said in her final week in the Tippecanoe County Courthouse. “Once you know this is going on, you can’t ignore it. I can’t.”

Here are five of those stories, where they stood then and where they stand now.

'You are in quicksand here'

Then: Last November, Rush had plenty to say to the mother of two boys who tested positive for methamphetamine. And she had plenty to say to the father of one of the boys who was accused of tossing the kid against a wall. But it boiled down this way. To the mom: You’re going to lose your kids if you don’t stop using drugs and hanging out with the wrong people. To the dad: Stay away.

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Where it stands now: In early August, someone familiar with the case spotted the mom and the dad together near a home along Main Street. During an emergency Child In Need of Services hearing on Aug. 23, the dad — who had a protective order against him in the case — swore that he just wanted to see his son get a haircut and that it happened just that once.

“Are you sure?” asked Craig Jones, a Department of Child Services attorney. “If that’s the only time, and you were caught because someone happened to be driving by, that’s incredibly bad luck.”

During a follow-up hearing on Oct. 3, Kathleen Carmosin, a DCS case manager, testified that she believed the mom, 11 months into a plan for reunification with her kids, could make it happen. The question: Would she? A concurrent plan for adoption with grandparents was being prepared.

Rush wasn’t in the mood to pat anyone on the back while the kids lived with grandparents in Logansport, the mom was still testing positive and hanging with the wrong people, and the dads of the two kids weren’t giving their all. She had plenty to say this time, too. It boiled down to this:

“You are in quicksand here — all of you,” Rush said. “You understand your time is running out. You need to open your eyes, ma’am. There’s not much wiggle room here.”

A case that a DCS kid dreams of?

Then: The uncle’s first time in Superior Court 3 was the day he told Rush he was willing to take care of the 8-month-old niece he didn’t know — the daughter of a half-brother he hadn’t seen in years. The uncle was a bit of a surprise to the court. He was discovered in a roundabout way, after dating a Department of Child Services worker, according to testimony in court. The baby’s mom was addicted and having a tough time turning things around. The dad, the uncle’s half-brother, was in the White County Jail after being picked up on a warrant that morning just as he was being released from jail in Cass County. No other immediate family on either side had been found. On a jail phone being broadcast in court, the dad told Rush that if his girlfriend couldn’t handle things, he’d like for his daughter to be with his half-brother. For all of the loose ties, blood relations matter in child placement cases in Indiana. Rush assigned the uncle to intensive parenting classes and told him to be prepared.

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Where it stands now: “Want to see a beautiful child?”

Not in the courtroom that day in November 2011 were the foster parents who took that baby in. They were here this time, on a late Monday afternoon in mid-September. As offices in the courthouse started to close around them, they paused on a fourth-floor landing, fully prepared to share a few photos of an 18-month-old who had lived in their home for much of her life. But they were clearly reeling from what just had happened over the past two hours in the courtroom.

“One more bombshell,” the foster mom said.

In February, the court terminated parental rights for the biological parents. The child remained in the foster home, with the uncle getting scheduled visitation rights. Since then, the foster parents began the adoption process, which the uncle contested. That case was pending in Judge Don Daniel’s Tippecanoe Circuit Court.

Now, the uncle was asking Rush to reconsider the February ruling that the child should stay with the foster parents. During testimony, Christine Beckman-Johnson, a clinical services specialist with DCS, said that “this is a case that a DCS kid dreams of — two families who love and want them.” DCS had sided all along with placing the child with the blood relative over the foster family.

Until now.

On the stand, Rhonda Friend, a DCS case worker, said the agency was sticking by a recommendation for scheduled visits for the uncle. But she said DCS was changing its position about placement of the child and siding with the foster family.

“We’ve been agonizing over this for months,” she said. “She’s going to be loved either way. She needs permanency now.”

The change seemed to stun the court. The uncle traded looks with his lawyer and his sisters and mother, who start to silently sob in the gallery. Rush asked, “Wait. They didn’t know until now?” The uncle’s attorney, Caroline Briggs, pressed to know when DCS came to that decision. The answer: Just outside the courtroom.

“You decided this 15 minutes ago?” Briggs asked.

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“That’s how agonizing this has been,” Friend said.

The uncle, who had spent months lining up health insurance and installing baby-proof locks and getting other things ready in case the girl comes to his home, was so flustered after this turn that Rush gave him 10 minutes to regroup.

Later, both sides made cases to remain closest to the child. The uncle talked about fun visits and about blood relations. The foster parents talked about the bond that comes through daily parenting and the commitment to bring up a drug-exposed baby with special needs.

“This is just a tough case,” Rush said. “I’m trying to see this through the child’s eyes, not what’s best for everyone in the room.”

Rush did not move from her February ruling. In the meantime, a case every DCS child dreams of isn’t over. A decision on the contested adoption waits in Circuit Court.

Outside court, the foster parents scrolled through two more photos on a smartphone: one of a happy 18-month-old lying against the family dog, the other of the toddler smiling for the camera with a pink bow on her head.

“She is beautiful, don’t you think?”

She is.

Signing away parental rights

Then: No one was ready to take this 6-year-old boy. His mother told Rush that she couldn’t control him and feared for her other three kids. She asked the court to terminate her parental rights. The foster parent at the time said she loved the boy but feared that at 52, she would be too old to raise a child who had already acted out sexually at school and at one point tried to hang himself. No extended family had stepped up. Rush’s options were thin.

Where it stands now: In June, the system found a foster family willing to work toward adopting the boy. By Sept. 21, his mom — who had had no contact with the child for a year — was ready to sign away her parental rights.

Juvenile Magistrate Faith Graham had the case now, coming a week after Rush was named an Indiana Supreme Court justice. Graham said she was familiar with the case, having handled the first emergency hearing a year earlier.

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The question she had now was whether the boy was doing well in school and adjusting to his new home. The foster mom, sitting in the gallery of Graham’s auxiliary court, said he was still struggling to maintain his behavior and was on the verge of suspension at school. She sounded a bit worn when she told Graham that she thought the boy was close to turning a corner.

“Are you still hanging in there?” Graham asked the foster mother.

“Trying to,” she said.

“We’re with you,” Graham told her.

'These kids are just dying to go back with you'

Then: A year ago in November, the mom in this case came to court, shell shocked from finding out that her former boyfriend had been accused of fathering a child with one of her teenage daughters. Her other children were removed from the home because they were determined to be in an unsafe situation. She spent that morning looking numb and answering questions from Rush about what she’d need to do to get her kids back.

Where it stands now: Since that hearing in November, the mom has pulled things together, lost it at least once and then started recovering again, according to testimony in court on Aug. 20. She was living at a Lafayette motel and picking up her mail at the Mental Health America drop-in shelter. Two of her kids, a boy and a girl, were in court with her, waiting word about how long it might be before they could live with their mom again.

The boy scratched his mom’s back at a courtroom table as he listened to case workers list relatives who have little or no interest in taking them in while their mom sorts through her problems.

Rush, who noted the highs and lows in this case, went the encouraging route.

“Are you ready to hang with me?” she asked. “When you’re cooking, you’re cooking. But enough with the alcohol. Enough with the men coming into the home. These kids are just dying to go back with you.”

Both kids nodded. The girl joined in with her brother, scratching their mom’s back.

“Don’t you think your mom looks great?” Rush asked the girl. The girl, in elementary school, looked at her mom and nodded to the judge. “How about a round of applause for (her).”

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The daughter smiled and high-fived case workers and bailiffs on her way out of the courtroom.

Flash forward to Oct. 24. Things have spiraled since August.

Judge Thomas Milligan, a retired judge from Montgomery County who is overseeing Superior Court 3 until a new judge is named to replace Rush, had taken over the case.

Keith Luebcke, a DCS case manager, testified that the mom had been drinking again. In the past two weeks, she had been arrested and charged for an incident where she was accused of pushing a woman up against a wall and choking her at the CityBus depot in downtown Lafayette. She lost her job at a gas station after the drawer came up short a couple of times. All of that considered, finding a place to live kept getting tougher.

The kids told the judge they still wanted to be with their mom.

But there was no talk about applause, no poking, no prodding and no pep talks — just cut-and-dried words from the bench. Milligan sentenced her to 30 days in jail for testing positive for alcohol on a drug screen; he suspended the sentence provided she stayed alcohol and drug free. He encouraged her to get set up with Home with Hope, a halfway house in Lafayette, to get help with her drinking problem. And a permanency hearing for her kids was set for mid-January.

This time, the daughter didn’t smile and she didn’t high-five anyone on her way out the door.

'It doesn't end with this family, does it?'

Then: Disheveled and in shackles, the 16-year-old girl was already was in trouble for biting her mom in a fight over cellphone privileges. But she was ready for more in Rush’s courtroom a year ago. After going a few more verbal rounds with her mom — who was riding the middle spot in a three-generation family of addiction and turmoil — Rush shut it down. “I’m looking at someone who’s given up on herself,” Rush said before ordering the girl back into secure detention. As the girl left the court, though, she asked a bailiff if it was OK to hug her mom. Her mom kissed her on the top of the head and promised to bring the girl’s blanket and pillow when she visited.

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Where it stands now: “You look great. You don’t look like you were when you were in here a year ago. You were a wreck,” Rush said from the bench on Oct. 16. “Look at you in that dress.”

The girl, now 17 and on the verge of graduating high school, was in the gallery for the opening of this two-for-one hearing. Time at White’s Residential and Family Services in Wabash seemed to have done a world of good. In a big, almost brassy voice, she told the judge as much. And Rush agreed.

The teen, in court for a status update, was second in line on this day. Her 16-year-old brother was first, in trouble for violating probation. He’d been skipping school and had two failed drug screens for marijuana.

Their mom, answering for her son’s behavior and progress on her own addiction, was on the spot again.

“It doesn’t end with this family, does it?” Rush asked a case worker after reviewing a file that she summed up as “chaos.”

“You’re sinking right now,” Rush told the boy. “You can’t live your life this way. You can’t be a third-generation addict. ... You’re a good person. I know that. I need for you to succeed. It’s just not working in that house, is it?”

When Rush contemplated finding room for the boy at White’s, too, his sister pumped her fist.

“It’s all fun for him now,” the girl told Rush. “But it won’t be. I didn’t get it together until I got out of Lafayette. Got away.”

Getting it together, though, didn’t mean she was totally there. She admitted that she still could be mouthy with authority figures at White’s. She apologized to Rush twice for blue language in court. And she admitted to kicking another girl in the face during a recent fight over the right way to do the dishes. (“I could have been the bigger person,” she told Rush. “She wasn’t using soap.”)

But she will graduate from high school early. She mapped out a plan for Rush that included living in a foster home until next spring, when she turns 18. (Given the shared drug history at home, Rush told the mom, “She loves you, but you can’t live together. I just don’t see that that’s possible.”) And after graduation, the girl planned to line up classes at Ivy Tech Community College.

Rush held on tight to that.

“How long have you been coming to my court? Forever, right?” Rush said. “I won’t be able to be your judge from now on. You know that, right? ... I’m going to be keeping up on you. I want to be at your graduation and see you in college. I want to see you knocking on my door at the Statehouse. Is that good?”

“That’s in Indy? I’ll be there,” the girl said. “I’m going to be OK.”

“I’ll count on it,” Rush said.

The judge paused, looked around for a second and said: “We’re done here.”

As the family filed out, Rush clarified: “Well, we’re never really done here. But done for the day. Make me proud.”